#rice terraces
Finally home back in Seattle. It’s been raining and cold ever since I got here… great. It feels surreal to be back home, feels like I imagined all of my Asia travels, or dreamed them and they weren’t real. Also feels like I’ve been gone for a year and like I never left, all at the same time. My mind is honestly getting tired from this overwhelming experience.
Well, one way I can prove to myself that my 3 month long trip actually happened is through the pictures I have brought back from Asia. I’ve been posting on this blog the pictures taken with my iPhone. I have also been taking tons of pictures with a real camera and tonight I finally got to upload them all on my computer that was left in Seattle.
While looking through the pictures all the memories from this trip are flooding my brain. I cannot believe I forgot that I rode a freaking elephant! If I didn’t take a video of this terrifying experience I probably would have never remembered it!
Tomorrow finally back to work. It’s good to be home :-)
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Banaue and Batad Rice Terraces were totally rad! OMG so cool! I hiked around the town of Banaue (bottom picture) and its rice terraces, every local said “hi!” and “where are you going?” to me. I stayed at Greenview Lodge and met a great company: Ruth, Rachel, and Adrian from Ireland and Jasmine and Thomas from Poland. Awesome peeps!
We all took a jeapney together to Batad which was the craziest off-road-quality kind of ride I’ve ever had! We all agreed that it felt more like taking a ride in Disneyland than real life: our jeapney loaded with tourists and their backpacks including a roof full of Poles, Germans, and Irish riding like a race car on a steep dirt-and-boulders road with a very very steep cliff on one side and a wall on the other. After 3 months of traveling I wasn’t even fazed, just fascinated that we lived.
We hiked into Batad and then to a waterfall with a local lady-guide. Awesome waterfall, crazy-steep hike! It was like a stair-master the whole way; I kept telling to myself it was good for my butt. I stayed at Simon’s guesthouse (200 Php) with an amazing view out my window. Great day of badass action!
Today I hiked with a local guide down from Batad to the main “road” and took a local suicide-bus back to Banaue. Thank goodness I had my awesome guide carting my 13 kilo backpack, I almost killed myself on that steep slippery hike today. My knees are angry at me. What a great sunny day!
Tonight I’ll ride the night bus back to Manila. I can’t wait.
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